The opportunity I had recently to watch a program on Massimo Bottura (who happens to quietly resemble our own Monsieur Soler) and his sheer, unadulterated joy for the hospitality industry was a potent reminder of what we, at our core, are meant to be. This is a man whose three-Michelin-star restaurant is a global pilgrimage site. He is personally available to his customers, embodying the foundational values of food, service, teamwork, and innovative, high-touch hospitality. Watching his pure devotion reminds me precisely why I love this industry.
Then I spent Thanksgiving weekend on Las Vegas Boulevard. The contrast is not just stark; it’s a study in corporate cognitive dissonance.
A high-end dining establishment. A four-figure bill and the mandatory 22% tip tacked on top. The experience? Abjectly lousy. Average fare, tables uncleared, long waits for drinks, empty glasses, absent staff, specific reasonable instructions ignored. Lame apologies, but zero meaningful attempt to correct the service failure. It’s a transaction, a forced exchange of money for a poorly executed process, utterly devoid of the grace Bottura personifies.
The next day, I visited the Tower Suites at Wynn, a property often awarded four and five diamonds from Forbes, to meet in house guests. I approached reception (to be received) to simply ask the staff to notify our friends that we were in the lobby and waiting. Instead, we were quizzed as to why we should even be there, and then essentially dismissed and told to wait outside until our friends came down. I proffered to the member of staff that he had much to learn about hospitality.
It entirely stumps me why, in the name of “high-end luxury,” hospitality “professionals” in this town so often lack the dignity and grace that makes hospitality great. Our friends were paying for the rarefied air of one of the best products on the Boulevard, yet the default position from the staff—who likely couldn’t afford the towel in the guest room—is to treat paying guests like an inconvenience and insult their guests, invited in to enjoy the hospitality.
I am exhausted from the sheer lousiness of the hospitality experience in this self-proclaimed luxury town. This posturing is an insult to those who undertake the immense commitment required for genuine luxury hospitality. The price tag alone does not equate to luxury; it is the hospitality that transcends the transaction and accompanies the products and services of our industry.
Life is so tech. But without human grace, it’s nothing but an overpriced transaction.
Mark Fancourt
